


Antioch

by semele



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, bravenaw17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 11:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12652269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: An obligatory ancient Rome AU this fandom deserves. Bellamy is a Roman soldier stationed in Britannia. When a brief diplomatic mission brings him back to Antioch, where he grew up, he finds the city somewhat changed.(Written for #bravenaw17, prompt 2: favorite AU.)





	Antioch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MarauderCracker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarauderCracker/gifts).



> I know everyone hates verbose writers, but this story comes with a lengthy intro.
> 
> I am going to ask you to suspend your disbelief a little bit as you go into this story. As we know, the Roman Empire spread wide and far, but didn't quite get neither to the Philippines nor to Mexico. For the purpose of this story, we're just going to assume that there were some links that we're now not aware of, and families traveled and grew roots further than we now imagine. 
> 
> This is why the story is set in Antioch, some time in late 2nd or early 3rd century AD (think more "Gladiator" than Julius Caesar). At that time, Antioch was one of the largest cities in the Empire, located in the province of Syria (near modern-day Antakya, Turkey), in the Greek-speaking part of the Empire. It was prosperous and vibrant, full of people from all over the Empire.
> 
> Bellamy's new home in the province of Britannia is heavily inspired by the settlement in Aquae Sulis (in modern-day Bath, UK). Did I come up with the rough idea of the story while on a trip to Bath a few months ago, and then proceed to write out a few good roleplay threads with Shortitude? You bet your ass I did.
> 
> Most but not all nerdy bits are based on facts. If you have any history questions, please let me know ;).

Bellamy’s first thought when he enters the city is that he remembers Antioch being much smaller.

Some things don’t change; there is dust and there is sun, and the stench is unbelievable; no matter how you slice it, big cities stink of rot and urine, and some other things he can’t quite separate anymore. He’s been in a village too long, that’s for sure, and in some way, he misses it already.

Antioch is changed and unchanged both at the same time; familiar streets and shops filled with strange faces he can’t quite place anymore. His sister doesn’t live here, hasn’t for years now, and if he had any friends before he became a soldier, he barely remembers their names. Not that it matters, really. He will only be here for a few weeks.

The first evening, Nathan invites himself for a walk, insisting that he needs a local guide if he’s supposed to come back in one piece, and Bellamy rolls his eyes a little, but he comes along anyway. It’s not like he has anything better to do, and Antioch with Nathan is more fun than without him, the way most things are. Back home, in their small military settlement far in Britannia, Bellamy and Nathan are close neighbors, but they often speak Latin or even Celtic with each other out of habit, or maybe to blend in better, hard to tell. It’s so easy to forget, in that lush, green village, that they both come from the same root, but here in Antioch, surrounded by Greek chatter, it only takes Nathan a few minutes to break into colorful, filthy koine with just a bit of a posh Alexandrian lilt that’s about to earn him a good kick in the teeth if he isn’t careful.

“You sound like an asshole,” mutters Bellamy as he buys them a flagon of wine in a tavern he remembers as being not so bad. “We get it. You’re from Alexandria and you lot think you’re so much better than us. I swear, it’s like you _want_ to find trouble.”

“Bellamy, my brother. Trouble wishes it could find me.”

They come back to their quarters via the main market just as the stalls are about to close, and somewhere in the corner of his eye, Bellamy registers that something weird happened to what he could swear used to be the belt-maker’s stand, but then Nathan drags him towards one last game of dice, and he doesn’t have time to linger.

***

If the next few days teach Bellamy anything, it’s this: if he thought Nathan and his Alexandrian accent sounded out of place here, he should’ve first listened to himself.

He never really paid attention to his own Greek. He grew up speaking it, and never thought much about it. Everyone around him spoke it, even the lowliest of the low, and when he first heard a Roman say something about a noble language of philosophy, he nearly let out a healthy bark of laughter. Then came the knowledge that there was more than one Greek. On some level, Bellamy knew it already; they all sounded different when they met in the market, and he could tell right away who came from Athens, Jerusalem or Alexandria. What was news to him is that, centuries ago, there used to be some different Greek, and now there are people who still read that. Hilariously enough, some people are actually trying to speak that, and that’s how Bellamy learned that the dialect he knows, the familiar koine that sounds like belonging and home, is somehow lowly and vulgar. Oh well. It’s not like he was planning on becoming a philosophy teacher.

Instead, he became his Roman officer’s usher not long after joining the army, and it suited him just fine; it opened the door to promotions, and helped him learn half-decent Latin, something very useful once he got sent off to Britannia with his legion and just a handful of fellow Greeks. As it turns out now, in the last few years he spoke to them less than he imagines, because now that he makes an effort to switch, his tongue is stiff and lazy, tripping up on the most familiar phrases. He understands everything alright, aided by the familiar melody of his home city, but everyone thinks him a foreigner, and it’s only funny for the first few hours. 

By the end of his third day in Antioch, he doesn’t really have anything left to do. He is here as an escort to his officer, useful on the way here and back, but while they’re in the city, and the officer is busy with whatever army mission he’s supposed to attend to, Bellamy and his fellow soldiers are free to do as they please. As it turns out, not much pleases Bellamy these days, because he ends up going back to the market, remembering that he saw something weird by the belt-maker’s stall. Who knows? Maybe he’ll find something interesting there, or at least spent some of the money he’s been saving up for years, not really out of caution, but just because there was nothing to spend on. Surely, he thought before setting off for this journey, things will be different in Antioch. Boredom or loneliness never used to happen to him there, back when he was a boy.

But now he’s been back for three days, and he’s willing to make a whole trip out of buying a belt at the market, just to fill the hours he has nothing to do with.

What he finds instead of the belts is a young girl bent over a thin scrap of metal, furious and focused, and ready to bite his head off when he lingers by her stall for a few minutes too long.

“Can I help you?” she asks in the least helpful tone she could possibly muster. “You’re blocking the light, and I have work to do.”

She isn’t the first curse-writer Bellamy ever met, of course. Every city has a few, hunched over metal or ivory as they scratch careful letters ordered by someone else. Those curses belong to the gods of the underworld, and they end up dropped in holy springs or fresh graves, bearing ill wishes on cheats and thieves between realms. Bellamy never needed a curse-writer himself, but he can see why many would. If you can’t write yourself, how else can you get your justice?

This girl here is clearly perfect for the job, snappish and possibly vindictive, but she is the first person in hours to actually notice him, so he lingers against his better judgement. People aren’t usually this hostile unless they’re scared, and there is something about this girl that makes him want to put her at ease.

“What happened to the belt-maker who used to be here?” he asks, trying his hardest to mimic the accent he clearly remembers having.

“And what’s that to you?”

He shrugs.

“I’m bored and I wanted a new belt. I haven’t been here in years, but I still remember where the belt-maker was.”

“Well, not any more, so order a curse or get lost. I don’t need a soldier hanging around here. You’re scaring my customers.”

That went well.

***

Next time he meets her is in a dark alley, screaming and kicking against a soldier holding her in a tight grip. At first, Bellamy doesn’t even realize that this is his curse-writer; he comes simply intrigued by the commotion, drawn by morbid curiosity. This is what a week of tragic boredom will do to a person.

(A week, or weeks, or maybe a few years, who is counting, really?)

“What’s going on here?” he asks once he realizes that the soldier’s rank is lower than his own. 

“I was chasing a thief,” spits out the girl, still trying to free herself. Bellamy could swear he can see a bruise already forming on her arm. “And then this log…”

The soldier makes a motion as if he meant to strike her, but one look at Bellamy makes him reconsider.

“She assaulted me,” he says stiffly. The girl lets out a groan.

“You were in the way! I didn’t even see you!”

It’s a difficult argument to resolve tactfully, and truth to be told, Bellamy is too tired to even try. He simply tells the soldier to let her go, with a lousy lecture about justice and citizens, and then he is left alone with his curse-writer, suddenly at loss for words.

“He retired,” says the girl after a long pause, eyes fixed on his face. “The belt-maker. He retired, and I’m renting his stall from him. Whoever else you buy from, avoid Diodoros in the east part of the market. His leather looks like he dips it in donkey shit.”

“You sound like some expert on donkey shit.”

“You’d be surprised.”

***

He knows his uniform probably scares people away a bit, but it’s not like he can show himself in public without it if he doesn’t want to risk punishment, and he can’t resist checking up on the curse-writer the next day. 

“I came for a curse,” he announces before the girl has time to scowl at him. She raises her eyebrows.

“A curse against…?” she prompts, unimpressed.

“Still thinking about it.”

That doesn’t get much of an answer. The girl simply shakes her head, and goes back to scratching someone’s name on her strip of metal.

“You’re full of shit,” she says after a beat. Her voice sounds slightly amused, and Bellamy wonders just how much she’d bite his head off if he offered to help cover at least some of the sum stolen by the thief.

“Mhm. Donkey shit. Look, I haven’t been to Antioch for like ten years, and I’m starved for some local gossip. So how about I trade you a bowl of stew for some juicy stories?”

“Stories like what?”

“Your name, for starters.”

She sighs, as if he’s the biggest pain in her ass, but there is also a hint of a smile playing on her face now.

“Raven. My name is Raven. And that better be some good stew.”

By the end of the day, when both of their bellies are full of the kind of stew Bellamy could never afford as a boy, he does finally try to give her money, claiming that it’s okay, that he can spare this, not a big deal. It happens to be true, but Raven still almost throws her bowl at him.

***

It’s another few days before Raven takes him by the hand at the end of the day, and leads him to the small room she rents not far away from the market. Bellamy assumes it’s out of some mixture of boredom and loneliness, and maybe a dash of dare. In the darkness of her room, his uniform comes off almost too easily, and after a whispered warning about not leaving her with child, he simply moves to kneel between her legs, and puts his tongue to work. It feels peaceful and almost eerie, with familiar-unfamiliar noises of the streets surrounding them as they gasp and whisper encouragements; here, gentler, harder, yes, oh gods, yes. It’s been years since the last time he was naked with another person, not that he planned it this way. There just hasn’t been anyone around him that he would want, not the way he suddenly wants this girl, with her sharp tongue and clever eyes, and her rough Antioch accent singing in his ear, yes, here, here, faster. Don’t stop.

Later, her hands surround him with gentle curiosity, tracing the lines and dips of his body until he’s left quite breathless, burying his face in her hair as he spills on her rough sheets.

They end up talking way into the night, the way lonely people sometimes do, and when he comes to her stall the next afternoon, she lets him watch the movements of her hand as she etches someone’s name into a fresh scrap of metal. Somewhere between trying to memorize the letters, he learns little things about Raven as well. Her mother, she says, was a freedwoman of one of the powerful Antioch families, and little Raven learned to read while carrying messages and peeking at ledgers in the small shop her mother was still running on behalf of that family. Writing came later, and then the more wine there was in her mother’s shaky hands, the more elegant Raven’s cursive became, accurate and flawless, the best scribe you could imagine. 

“Then how come you’re not there anymore?” blurts out Bellamy, too surprised to mince words.

Raven shrugs.

“They closed the shop, and I managed to make do. I’m the best fucking curse-writer in the city, everyone knows that.”

Of that, he has no doubt.

***

“What’s Britannia like?” whispers Raven one night, when they’re curled up naked between her sheets. It’s funny how she changes slowly as days go by, and yet remains essentially the same, rude and brash, and with something vulnerable about her that looks too familiar for him to dare to look at it up close.

Raven has one friend, a fellow tradesman in the main market, and apart from that, she’s all alone in the world.

“Green,” he answers without hesitation, his fingers slowly tracing the line of Raven’s spine. “It gets cold, when winter comes, but there is water in abundance, so much water no one ever has to go without.”

“Bullshit,” she says with a laugh, then pokes his side. “I was asking for real.”

“For real. It rains so much that moss grows on our walls. Still, worth it. We’re an outpost far from the main road. As long as the Celts keep their peace, command forgets we even exist. It’s better that way. We’re stonemasons more than soldiers.”

She keeps quiet after that, absorbing all the new information as she plays with shadows dancing on his skin in the dim light of a small olive lamp. Raven is quieter when it’s just the two of them, like she is soaking up something that’s sure to run out way too soon.

“Must be nice. Peaceful,” she says eventually, her gaze drifting away from him.

It is, he almost tells her, his voice full of enthusiasm. You would like it, Raven. You would like it so very much.

***

One evening three weeks into Bellamy’s stay in Antioch, Nathan drags him to the same tavern they visited on the first day, and goes to order a flagon of wine against everyone’s better judgement. Clearly he’s laying a bit low on the flamboyant Alexandrian accent these days, because he comes back not only with wine, but also with all his teeth intact.

“I saw your girl in the market,” he says without a preamble. “She’s cute.”

All of a sudden, it feels like Bellamy’s stomach is full of rocks.

“How’s that any of your business?” he asks, trying to sound hostile, even if he knows it won’t work with Nathan.

“Just looking out for our village. We could use a curse-writer. She’d make it out like a bandit in the sanctuary. Plus, she’s prettier than the high priest, and that would piss him off if she showed up to stay, so it’s clearly relevant to my interests.”

Bellamy just sighs, fingers tight around his cup. If only things were so easy.

“I can’t just…”

“Sure you can. Question is, would she want to?”

To that, all Bellamy can do is tilt his cup, and drain it in one go.

***

A few days later, he watches Raven get dressed in the dim light of dawn, fascinated by how shadows play on her skin, covered inch by inch by the coarse fabric of her tunic. All of a sudden, he is craving seeing her like this in broad daylight, happy and naked, and sprawled luxuriously in lush, green grass, her hands reaching out for him the way they sometimes do when she thinks he isn’t paying much attention.

What he doesn’t say: he is getting so used to the sound of her voice that he doesn’t know how he’ll ever fill the silence once he leaves her behind.

If he has secrets he keeps from her, he’s pretty sure Raven has a few of her own, like: the way she never protests now when he hangs out by her stall for hours. One day, when business was slow, she picked up a stick and guided his hand as he wrote her name in the dirt time after time, all in good fun, as if this wasn’t the first word he wrote in his life. As if she didn’t make him write it so many times that by the end of the afternoon, it felt as if it was etched in his very heart.

Truth is, he knows Nathan is right. All he’d need to do is speak to their commanding officer, and then he could offer Raven a place on their ship back home. Technically it’s forbidden for Roman soldiers to marry before their service is over, but deep in the woods of Britannia, no one cares about such small things. Their village is full of women and children, and most plan to stay right there once the army released them, eager to grow roots in the place where they were the happiest. Storm clouds are gathering over the Empire, even fools could see it by now, but out there on the edges, they care about the Empire only as much as the Empire cares about them.

“You should walk around naked more often,” he tells Raven once she’s dressed, and she gives him a playful slap on the shoulder, then lingers to touch his bare skin.

“Are you coming back tonight?” she asks cautiously, almost like it truly matters to her.

“Are you gonna wear nothing?”

“Why don’t you come over and find out?”

***

Sometimes, he catches Raven looking at him wistfully, as if her fingers were counting days so intensely they end up curling into fists. They don’t talk about it, too scared of big words, uproot your life and come with me, but something about their touches gets more desperate by the day, until they’re clawing each other raw, and Bellamy almost loses it, buried deep inside Raven. He pulls out at the last second, then feels cold sweat gather at the base of his spine, close call, too close. Just look at him, messy head in messy sheets, and two very messy hands that reach to pull Raven close, and give comfort she didn’t even ask for, but will take anyway.

“Will you remember me?” she asks him out of the blue, and it makes him hold on harder, as if he could squeeze more time out of the days he has left here in Antioch. Three weeks done. Three to go.

It took him years to find something beautiful to keep inside him. He can’t just let it go now.

“You could come with me,” he whispers, and that pulls her up short, her face full of hurt.

“That’s not funny,” she accuses him without her usual bravado.

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

***

Raven avoids him for the next few days, and he can’t say he blames her. He still shows up in the market every day, but when she wouldn’t meet his gaze, he leaves quietly, still not sure what the hell is going on with him. He doesn’t want like this, not ever, except he wants this one girl like he never wanted anything or anyone in the world. If leaving his legion and staying in Antioch with her didn’t mean almost certain execution, he’d do it in a heartbeat. 

What he does instead is count on his fingers, precious days passing by and wasted, spent alone and not with her. Twenty days left. Nineteen. Eighteen.

On day sixteen on his countdown, she steps away from her stall when she sees him, says something quick to her neighbor, and takes Bellamy’s hand in broad daylight. It’s like a perfect callback; she leads him to her room without many words, her steps loud on the cobblestones like each one signified a decision, something heavy and final. Once they’re in, they pull at the straps of Bellamy’s uniform until he’s left in just a tunic, and then he pulls her into his arms without a word, or maybe it’s her who goes into them, hard to tell at this point. What matters is that he has her close, almost as close as it gets, and he’s only known her for a few short weeks, but then – haven’t they both seen lives built or ruined in even less? When Bellamy joined the army, it all took him no more than a day.

“I spoke to Nathan,” says Raven against his shoulder, then looks up to meet his gaze. “Is it true? I could just… go?”

It’s a long conversation, and they touch all the way through it, Raven’s fingers on his shoulder, or his heart in her hands as he explains about the temple and the village, and the way they all live their lives unbothered by anyone.

About the way she became necessary, and now he can’t be without her.

It’s not fair to her, of course. The risk she is taking is far greater, her life completely in his hands; if he deceives her, she’ll end up alone and destitute, possibly with no way to go back home. He, in comparison, has nothing but his heart to lose, and yet here he is, asking for more and more, with nothing but his promises to offer her.

If he doesn’t tell her he loves her, it’s because it seems too cruel even for him.

***

Two weeks later, Raven speaks Latin to Nathan and Marcus, Bellamy’s commanding officer, all the way to the port where a ship is waiting to take them all across the sea. It sounds almost wrong coming from her, a bit twisted around the ends, as if she was trying to get the words to curl in familiar, Greek ways. As jarring as it is to Bellamy’s ears, her Latin is surprisingly good, probably better than his, and by the time they reach the port, she manages to charm everyone with her wit and street wisdom. As it turns out, other soldiers from their mission have been visiting her in the market one by one, intrigued by Bellamy’s sudden infatuation, and now they’re like her new best friends, pulling her into the life of the village even though they’re still half the world away.

If Bellamy kisses her in broad daylight, while they’re all waiting to board, the others pretend not to see.

“Are you sure?” he asks her quietly, fingers sliding down her cheek. “You’re leaving a whole life behind.”

All he gets in return is a familiar cheeky grin.


End file.
